Fahrenheit 451 Comprehension Questions Part 1: The Hearth and the Salamander [Pages 3-33] 1. How are the books that are being burnt described? (3) 2. What is Montag s job? Does he like his job? (3) 3. How does the author describe the girl that Montag meets near his home? What is her name? How old is she? What does she like to do? (5-7) 4. What symbols does Montag wear on his uniform? Look up the symbols in a dictionary. What do they represent? (6) 5. What does Montag smell of? Why does he smell like this? (6) 6. How old is Montag? How long has he been a fireman? (8) 7. What questions does Clarisse ask Montag that upsets him? (10) 8. Explain the significance of the following quote: What does it tell us about the society in which Montag lives? I sometimes think drivers don t know what grass is, or flowers, because they never see them slowly, she said. 9. Describe the billboards. (9) 10. Describe Montag s bedroom. Is he happy? (11) 11. What are the Seashells? (12) 12. What kind of marriage do Montag and Mildred have? Explain. 13. What did Montag kick? (12) Why is this significant? What happened to Mildred? (14) Does she remember what happened? 14. Who comes to help Mildred? Why is Montag upset? 15. Describe the parlour. (20) Who really likes it? 16. What does Clarisse do with the dandelion? Why does this upset Montag? What does this tell us about him? (21) 17. Why does Clarisse go to a psychiatrist? (22-23)
18. What is the Mechanical Hound? What do the firemen do with it when they are bored? (24) 19. Why doesn t Clarisse go to school? (29) What is the Fun Park? Who goes there and what do they do there? (30) 20. What does Clarisse think about people her own age? 21. What happens to Clarisse? 22. What do the firemen look like? (33)
Part 1: The Hearth and the Salamander [Pages 34-68] 1. What line from a book does Montag let slip in conversation with Captain Beatty? How is this significant to Montag s character development? (34) 2. What are the fireman s rules of conduct? (35) 3. What is being personified on page 41? How is Montag s hand being personified? 4. What is the normal procedure when an alarm is called in on someone? How is this alarm different? (36) 5. How is the book that is lit on fire described? (37) How is it similar to how the author describes the book at the beginning of the novel? 6. Does the woman whose home the firemen have come to burn leave with the firemen? What happens to her? (38-39) 7. When do the alarms come? (39) Why do they come at this time of day? 8. The woman is ranting. What does she say? Copy what she says into your notebook. What is heresy? How could the woman s actions be considered heresy. 9. What does Montag do with the book that he stole? (41) 10. What is the joke Montag refers to Mildred? (42) How is this joke representative of Montag and Mildred s relationship? 11. What question does Montag ask Mildred that neither of them can answer? Would Montag cry had Mildred died from her sleeping pill overdose? How does this revelation make him feel? What is Montag s most significant memory of Mildred? (42-44) 12. Mildred never really listens to Montag. There are always too many distractions. What are these distractions? 13. What has happened to Clarisse and her family? Who tells Montag about what has happened? Why did it take so long? 14. Who or what does Montag feel is outside that night? (48) 15. What does Mildred look like? Use the text to support your answer. Do you think she is attractive? (48) 16. What is the relationship Mildred has with her parlour walls? What does she consider them to be? (49)
17. Montag wants Mildred to call Captain Beatty and tell him that he is sick and will not be coming into the fire station that night. Why is Montag sick? (50) 18. Explain the significance of the following: There must be something in books, things we can t imagine to make a woman stay in a burning house. There must be something there. You don t stay for nothing. (51) 19. Why do you think that Montag became a fireman? (51) 20. What is the realization that Montag comes to about books? (51-52) 21. Who pays Montag to visit a home? Why does he come? Summarize Beatty s explanation why books have been banned in society. (53-61) 22. What are people in this time and this society led to believe about themselves? (61) 23. Captain Beatty says the following about firemen: We stand against the small tide of those who want to make everyone unhappy with conflicting theory and thought. We have our fingers in the dike. What role does Captain Beatty see firemen have in this time? 24. What is the rule about a fireman who takes home a book? 25. What is and has been hidden behind the grille of the air conditioning system? What is Mildred s first response?
Part 2: The Sieve and the Sand [Pages 71-86] 1. Who is Montag still thinking about? (72) 2. What is Mildred s impression of books? How do books compare to the parlour walls? (73) 3. Montag relates the reader his chance encounter with the old man in the park. In point form, discuss what happened. Why do you think that Montag never turned in the old man? (74) 4. What is the question Montag calls Faber to ask him? How does Faber react? (75-76) 5. What does Montag question Mildred about? (77) 6. Montag feels numb. When does he figure that the numbness started? (78) 7. How does the following quote relate to how Montag feels about books: Once a child had sat upon a yellow dune in the sea in the middle of the blue and hot summer day trying to fill a sieve with sand, because some cruel cousin had said, Fill this sieve with sand and you ll get a dime. And the faster he poured the faster it sifted through with a hot whispering. His hands were tired, the sand was boiling, the sieve was empty. 8. What is a sieve? 9. How is the train s radio personified? (79) 10. Describe Faber. 11. Why do you think that Montag describes his wife as dying? (81) 12. Why has Montag come to see Faber? 13. What are the three (3) things that Faber says are missing? (83-85) 14. What would Faber like to see happen to the firemen? (85-86)
Part 2: The Sieve and the Sand [Pages 87-110] 1. According to Faber, are the firemen needed? What purpose does Faber see the firemen as serving? (87) 2. What does Montag do with the Bible? Why does he do this? (88) What does Montag ultimately do with the Bible? (91) 3. How long has the story being told been going on? (89) 4. How did Faber earn his money since he has been an unemployed English professor for 40 years? 5. What is the green bullet? What is its purpose? Who made it? (90-91) 6. What is the constant threat in the sky? (91-92) 7. Who comes over to the Montag house? Why do they come? (93) 8. What does Montag do that is very unusual for this society? What does he insist that the women do with him? (95-96) 9. Is Mrs. Phelps a good mother? What activity does she compare watching her children with? Why? (96) 10. The women and this society put so much value on physical appearance. How do they demonstrate how valuable an attractive person is? (96-97) 11. What does Montag show to the women to shock them? (98) What reason does he tell Faber for showing them? 12. How did Mildred cover for Montag? (99) 13. Where does Montag now hide the books? (102) 14. When Montag is at the fire station, what do his hands feel like? Why? (105) 15. Who is driving the fire truck? Did this person usually drive? Why do you think that he is driving tonight? (106) 16. Where is the alarm that the firemen go to? (110)
Part 3: Burning Bright [Pages 113-165] 1. Captain Beatty has stopped in front of Montag s house. Montag is surprised. Beatty does not think that this should come as a surprise to Montag. Why? (113) 2. Who does Beatty think fooled and ruined Montag? (113-114) 3. Where is Mildred in all of the commotion? Who is she worried about? (114) 4. There are books in the Montag house. Where were the books and how did they get back into the house? (115-116) 5. What does Beatty want Montag to do? Why? (116) What does Faber want Montag to do? Why can t Montag do what Faber tells him to do? (116) 6. When Montag finishes destroying the house, what is supposed to happen to him? (117) 7. Who turned in the alarm? (117) 8. What takes place between Montag and Beatty? What does Beatty discover? (118) 9. Describe in detail what happens to Captain Beatty. (119) 10. Explain the incident with the Mechanical Hound. What happens to the hound? (120) 11. How does Montag s leg feel? Find the figurative language that the author uses to describe it. (121) 12. What does Montag look for in the backyard? What does he find and what does he do? What are Montag s feelings about what he has done? (122-123) 13. What realization does Montag come to about Captain Beatty? Why does he believe this to be so? (122) 14. What does Montag feel he has done to Faber? Why? Is Faber okay? (123) 15. What does Montag hear on the Seashells? What doe he do? (124-125) 16. Why does Montag go to the gas station? What significant event does he learn about there? (125) 17. What or who does Montag think is after him? What happens? Who was it? (128) 18. In whose house does Montag hide some books? Where does he hide them? What does he do next? (130)
19. Montag questions all that has happened in the last week and all that is now lost? What is lost? (131) 20. Where does Faber suggest Montag should go? Who else will he find there? (132) 21. Faber gives Montag a small postcard-sized TV. What is being broadcast tonight? Is this event similar to anything you might have watched on TV? (133) 22. It is very late or early morning. How would the people know to come and watch the hunt on the parlour walls? (134-135) 23. What instructions does Montag give to Faber for after he leaves? Does it work? (135) 24. How does the audience become involved in the drama? (138) 25. Describe the conflicts that are going on inside Montag regarding Clarisse, Mildred, Beatty, and Faber. 26. Explain the following symbols or ideas: a. the river (139) b. burning (141-) c. senses (139-145) d. fire (145) e. book burning (147-155) 27. Who is Granger and what is his importance? 28. How does the book end? Explain why Bradbury ends it this way.